Things I've sent people

Realised I hadn't posted any photos in nearly a week! Shock! Horror! So here are a bunch of amusing things I've sent various people since I arrived here.
Except this first one. This is the mug I was provided when I arrived. It's my daily pep talk from the company...

I have no idea what the connection is between enjoying life and outdated household items.
Don't you hate when you end up alone. And when you're in the grassland, that's the worst.
I rather like cheques too...

I blog, therefore I am.

"Si vous ne bloguez pas, vous n'existez pas. Je crois qu'aujourd'hui l'identité en ligne est plus importante que la vie réelle."
(stolen from Loic Le Meur via Maitresse)

If you're nobody til you're a blogger, does that make me three somebodies?

EDIT: Just realised I should translate that: "If you don't blog, you don't exist. I think that today, online identity is more important than real life."

The Fourth Reich

It seems incredibly obvious to me, but it seems some people just don't get it. I just read this article, reprinted in the Japan Times, about how many americans want to institute some sort of identification for muslims - either by making them wear an armband, tatoo or whatever, or by printing a cresent symbol on their driver's licence or other ID. To me this just screams 'Warning Warning, we are about to slaughter millions of people for no good reason'. So how can people not realise that? Or is that what they want?
I knew things were bad in the States, but I didn't know they were quite at this level. Hopefully last month's elections will stop the slide.

Credo

"so i believe if you call the wrong number
you should talk for a while
you might like em more than
who you meant to dial. "

This isn't the best thing I've taken from Alix Olson's "I believe", but it sounds like fun. She says a lot of very sensible things. The full lyrics are here, and it's a poem, not a song, so you can just read it, but it's much better when she says it! Recordings (unfortunately not of "I believe" but the rest of her stuff's great too!) can be heard here.

A Day in the Life

The alarm on my mobile goes off at 8.40am on school days. And I fumble for it and peer at it to make sure it is the snooze button I'm hitting, and not the off button, and roll over and refuse to get up until it goes off again 10 minutes later, at which point I crawl backwards off my futon, via the foam tile I've put between my futon the the top of the ladder (to stop me getting bruises on my knees everyday) and crawl down from my loft.
I fall into some clothes, warm up some buttery bread stick things I keep in the freezer, pour a glass of milk coffee and leave the house. I'm always the last in the building to leave, so my bike is the last one left in the parking space, which at least makes it easy to get out. I ride to school - with my umbrella up if it's raining enough - sometimes stopping for a bottle of hot coffee from one of the several dozen vending machines I pass in my 15 minute ride to school. If I didn't have breakfast, I'll buy a kurowasan from the bakery (that's a croissant, in case you were wondering). Either way, as I pass the bakery I will check the time to see if I should speed up to avoid having to stop at the railway crossing for the 9.24 train (it's never late, of course), or slow down cos it's too late anyway.
I ride into school, saying ohio gozaimasu to the guy in the yellow jacket who looks after the bike parking, park in a spot that I have calculated is as close as possible to the classroom I am in last on most days, while still not being too far from the office where I have to login on the computer first thing every morning.
When I arrive in that office, I will say hello to either of the two teachers who work with me, if they are there. If the one I don't talk to is there, we studiously ignore each other, as usual. Once logged in, I'll do any copying for the day, if needed, or just head to the teachers room to drop off my stuff, and maybe do some last minute planning before going to the classroom 10 minutes before my class, in order to write things on the board and whatnot.
If no one turns up (I don't have many students, so it happens) I read a second-hand copy of the Japan Times, usually a few days old, or do the crossword from it. Or plan the lesson for the next day, or do my japanese homework. Or generally amuse myself somehow.
Lunch is at 12 every day, except Fridays when it's at 11.30. I sometimes sit with students or one of the other teachers (the ones I talk to) or on my own, in which case I either continue to read a bit of newspaper, or, more often, listen to a podcast or music on my phone's mp3 player. Lunch always involves miso soup and rice (or noodles, but I prefer the rice). And usually a salad that I have discovered is mostly Burdock root. It's delicious!
At 1 I have my busiest class of the day. Sometimes I have up to 8 students! It always has more energy and momentum than the classes with 2 or 3 students!
During one of my afternoon breaks I'll make myself a cup of tea - usually chai - in the teachers room, or buy another hot can of milk tea or coffee or something from a vending machine.
At 6.40, when my last class finishes, I head straight for my bike and am usually home by 7ish. If the railway crossing is closed when I approach I stop at the takeaway sushi shop next to the crossing to buy a maki roll and two inari (the sweet tofu pockets stuffed with sushi rice). Otherwise I'll make some fried rice or microwave a frozen spaghetti meal or cook an omelet or something when I get home. On Fridays, of course, and often on other days as well, Gloria and I go to the hundred yen sushi restaurant up the road. And on Wednesdays, I race to my Japanese lesson after work, so I do't get home til after 8pm.
My computer goes on the moment I get home, and I put on something to listen to while I'm cooking or doing whatever needs to be done (Triple J streamed online is good). Apart from that I'm pretty much glued to the computer for the rest of the evening, either reading stuff, writing nonsense like this, or watching dvds. At 11 or so, I might do some yoga and have a shower, then balance my computer, headphones and telephone in one hand and climb the ladder to the loft. I watch one last episode of whatever (two if my battery holds out) and then I sleep. If I can, on my futon that is about as thick as your average australian-summer doona...

Things that have caught my interest lately.

• These documentaries about tolerance. One of them may have given me an idea for A Project when I get back to Brisbane.
• These great pictures of the earth. Thanks to my aunt for sending the link!
• Free Yoga! In the privacy of your own home! I'm yet to try it, of course, but it sounds good. I'm so bored with my one yoga dvd.
• Flickr, the photo website. Should I create an account and upload all the photos that aren't interesting enough to make this blog or the travel blog? But then, if they aren't interesting enough, maybe no one needs to see them!
• MP3 downloads on Triple J. Now I can take the mp3 of Hack or Dr Karl to school on my phone mp3 player, to listen to during boring moments, instead of having to stream them direct here at home.
• Waterproof MP3 players. Maybe this one. I love that my camera is water and shock proof, and I'm thinking it's a good idea for everything. Would also make swimming a lot less boring. Oh, and the ebay listing that I've linked to is well worth a look. Have a look at the caption under the big picture (the one with the goggles).

Last lot

Here are the end of the amusing photos of last weekend. The pretty photos are on my travel blog, and I'm still thinking of uploading the rest to flickr, which would mean starting a flickr account, but, given my current photographic bent, that might be a good idea. I took 200 photos in my two days in Hakone! Ridiculous really. But some of them came out really nicely, and the rest, well, here they are...

My cruising boots are my favourites...

I don't know if I want "potatochips" or "Pumpkin" burended into my icecream. Or "tiny rice crackers and peanuts". No, not "Soybean flour" either. Thanks anyway.

The panda appears to be a form of transport. I didn't ask why.

And this next photo is ghastly quality because I was many metres away on a moving ship (ok, not moving much, but still...). It's still legible though. Either they want to rent out the back deck, or you don't really want to go out there...

I'm Googleable!

I've just been browsing my statcounter (yes! I know Who is reading my blog When and from Where!) and have discovered that TWO people lately have found my blog through google! Try searching for "driving map sagamihara city hakone". I'm near the top on the first page! (no idea why, but the "driving" is important. Have I *ever* talked about driving here?) AND, if you search for "sagamihara hakone map" my travel blog is the first hit! At least, it's the sub-hit of the first hit! (click the link to see what I mean).
The other search terms that put me on the first page is "arabian rock shinjuku".
Why, I feel almost famous.

EDIT: and now, of course, I am *the* top of the list for these search terms. If anyone is actually looking for these things for real, I bet it pisses them off! (Sorry if that's how you arrived here!)

Black Eggs (Weekend pics, part 3)

Owakudani is famous for black eggs that are cooked in the boiling hot sulfuric spring water here. But apparently they don't always have them available. At least, that's what I think they're saying here.
The sulfuric gases that fuel the tourist industry here are apparently not all that healthy for you. I decided I didn't have a dedicate bronchus and went on regardless!

The gases and spring water here might not be so good for you, but the eggs they cook in them are apparently very healthy for you.

And this one, I just can't work out. Ok, point 1 refers to the fact that you can only buy 6 eggs at a time, I understand that. And point 4 is obvious. And 2 might just mean that you have to eat the eggs within 2 days. But point 3 really gets me. Can anyone read the japanese and provide a better translation? Or anyone, any suggestions as to what it might mean? Prizes for the most creative responses...

more from last weekend

More from my weekend in the Hakone region!
This isn't some google earth image, but a shot from the cable car over the valley at Owakudani. I don't know what they were doing, but it was something they were doing with the sulfuric gases and steam that shoots out of the ground all over this volcanic region. If anyone has any idea what exactly they are doing, do let me know!
And at Gora station, you can eat hot sands!

And at Chokoku mori station, you put your rubbish in a "dust port". It sounds so high-tech. Like something you would find in a spaceship.
The cable car that took us to Owakudani was keen for us not to open the door of the capsule and tumble to our deaths hundreds of metres below: "A door is automatic and opens and closes it. Please do not hit a handle here"

What a weekend

I had 4 days off this weekend, which means going back to school tomorrow is going to be quite a shock to the system! I spent my first day off doing testing for Cambridge (I'm an official Oral Examiner for the lower level Cambridge exams now!), and then two amazing days in the Hakone region, and then today I spent doing pretty much nothing, except, of course, going out for sushi with Gloria.

I collected a heap of photos of funny stuff this weekend, so I'll blog them in batches over this week. Here's the first lot:
First, another vending machine. This one serves cups of drink, either hot or cold. The reason for the photo though, is the tv screen on it. So many things here have tv screens. Even the price tags on the shelves in shops are sometimes tv screens bombarding you with little tinny advertising jingles. This TV screen has the words "Vendor Vision" under it. I found it amusing!

My first example of Itarian. This was not far from the vietnamese restaurant where I had dinner with a friend on Thursday night after the testing.

This was a sign outside a bar in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. My theory is that they are trying to be a "coconut disco". God knows why though.

Magnetic Island - Townsville, Australia
visited Nov 22, 2006
I forgot magnetic island! Which is a pity, because it was a nice place. We got into horseshoe bay after dark, and woke to find it was a nice bay with a good beach and plenty of other yachts, and well set up for yachties. We went ashore and explored the one street of civilisation (fresh milk! yay!) and had a real coffee (pity it was awful...), then caught a bus to the beginning of the track up to the old army forts and look outs and whatnot that are still there from WWII. It was nice to have a good walk after a few days of relative inactivity. In Horseshoe Bay we also discovered a great shop called Maroon'd, which said it sold "survival products for people". While at first glance this could be mistaken for a gift shop (it did sell candles, soaps, scented things and other trinkets) it also seemed to manage to stock at least one of nearly everything you can think of. There was a second book section, a pet section, a crocodile meat (with recipes!) section, they had pharmaceuticals, every type of spark plug ever made, bike gear, fishing gear, swimmming gear, boat parts, shoes, small gold anchors (for your small gold boat perhaps?) and even a boatswains whistle. And there was an internet computer. And it was all in a room about the size of my living room at home. Pretty amazing, really, and quite unexpected on the wrong side of a small island! (the main civilisation on magnetic is on the other side of the island). We ended up leaving later than planned (probably due to the hour spent in the shop!) and headed into Townsville proper to find the marina berth that had been booked.

Another hat gone...

Waa. I've lost my hat. I stopped at a bakery on my way to school this morning to buy something for breakfast, and shoved my hat in my jacket pocket as I went inside. As it was pretty warm, I didn't feel the need to put it back on when I came out, so didn't even think of it until I got to school 5 minutes later, and went to put it in my drawer in the teachers room. It wasn't in my pocket. And I don't know where it is! I've even retraced my steps, and asked at the bakery (in japanese!) but no luck. Grr. It wasn't a perfect hat. It was brown flat cap of the style I have been wearing for years now, but it had a tendency to slip upwards and sit too high, but I only bought it 3 months ago (in Edinburgh) and it was my current best hat. I do have one other, but it's sort of... fluffy. I don't do fluffy very well.
And thinking about it, I seem to have some sort of curse that means my hats are never allowed to last more than 3 months or so. I think my record might be 6 months or so for the one I bought in Brescia last april and left in a bulgarian supermarket in about november.
So let's have a moment of mourning for Yet Another Lost Hat. And for the fact that I will now have to wear a fluffy hat.

Today's crop

This is from my outing to Ueno in Tokyo today. My travel blog has more info. These green signs seem to be approaching the issues of smoking and littering from intersesting angles. In case you can't read them, the first one says "Cigarette smoke is wider than a human body" and the other one says "Some people throw trash in the street. Other people have to clean it up" The first person in the trash picture is labelled "Bad Smoker" and the other three are labelled "Street Cleaner", just in case you didn't get the message!


And this is a snack I bought at the 99yen shop that was slightly disappointing. They didn't provide nearly as much joy as promised!


And another one I couldn't get a picture of was a girl's shirt that said in large letters "ABSOLUTELY" and underneath it said "Be Pleased to Do". "Do what?" I ask!

Another shirt last week: "Orange Peel". No idea why. It was an orange shirt though.

And the Turkish restaurant I went to tonight had a tri-lingual menu, and the english was full of cuteness. For a main course we had a choice of, among others, "Lattatouille" or "Raviori". Other than that, they'd done a pretty good job, really, and the food was lovely - very authentic, I think.

Photos from my life lately

So here are a selection of photos from the last month or so that seem blog-worthy but never made it into a post at the appropriate time. They are in random order.
Halloween: I didn't see the makeup until I got home (thanks Gloria!). If you can't guess, I was a spider web. And I think Nami maky have been a pumpkin. I never really worked it out!

This was my lunch at school the other day. Pretty typical. I'm hooked on the Miso soup!


Gloria and I saw this band (I think they're called One Star) play in Shinjuku a few weeks ago. The lead guitarist is an old student of hers. They were really good, and the tiny little basement bar was a fantastic venue!
This is Okonomiyaki. Eggy pancakey omlettey thing. With sauce and mayonaise on top. Oh, and the girls who came over and made it, of course!

Later that night they gave me a birthday cake! With candles! (7 of them!)

And this is from a different night when we had Nabe, which is a sort of stew thing. It was utterly delicious. For some reason it made sense to have the lid of the Nabe pot on my head at this moment. I don't know why. We weren't even drunk!


This is the view from the corridor outside our teachers room at school I love gazing at the lines of mountains in the distance, and often the sunsets are beautiful!

And a different sunset from a different window in the same corridor.

And this, believe it or not, is a golf driving range. It's also visible on the other side of the same corridor.

I am utterly addicted to sushi. This is the 100yen sushi train that I have been to at least once a week since we discovered it. Before that we were going to one that was much further away. I will have to take a photo of some of the actual sushi at some point. It's such a pretty food!


And the train. I don't have to catch a train to work, which I am very grateful for. This picture was an evening train, with hardly any people on it, but you still never get a seat. In the worst of the rush hour you are lucky if you can even breathe.

There are more, so stay tuned, and I'll post them in the next few days sometime. I also put a heap of Harajuku photos on my travel blog, so check them out too!

More engrish pics.

Look a second post in a day! I've been sorting photos, and thought I'd better blog them while I knew which ones were which!

My favourite nut mix for my relax time:

And this (from Meiji Shrine in Harajuku) made me feel there was something lost in the translation. It's like the opposite of Chinese. I remember when I went to the Imperial City, there would be three chinese characters, and the english translation would be about a page long!

This isn't Engrish. The sausage-y thing just looked disgusting, somehow!

And this is the most elaborate pocky I've ever seen. I'm wondering if "decorer" has something to do with the french. Not with shampoo. Either way, they were yummy!

I like Japaneeeese

I've been going to Free Japanese Lessons at something called the Sagamihara International Lounge since about the first week I arrived here. It's a great system. They have 4 or 5 sessions each week of these free lessons, taught by volunteer teachers, and the only thing they ask is 200yen (about AU$2.30) per month as a photocopying fee. Well worth it. There mut be about 10 or 15 little groups all working at different levels each session, all in one room. I've been lucky enough to nearly always have a teacher to myself, as I was sort of adopted by one teacher on my first saturday session. Unfortunately I started finding saturdays too hard (there's too much else to do on the weekends!) and started coming on wednesdays, even though I'm permanently an hour late for the two hour session! I joined a group that was only slightly behind where I was, but, due to doing some extra work in my free time at school and going to this Saturday's session as well (not to mention my natural ability to pick up languages), I'm going to be way too far ahead for that group next time, so I'll have to ask to change, and that's going to be a pain! But it does show the fliexibility of the many-small-groups system. If one person progresses faster than the others they can be promoted to a group already working on the next chapter of the book (we all use the same book, which makes it easier to know exactly where you're up to). I wonder if this could be made to work in an english school at any point. hmm.

Oh, and the lessons are held in a building called the "Fuchinobe Promity Building" whatever that means!

And, because I can't do anything so boring as a post without a picture, here are a couple I took in Harajuku a couple of weeks ago. I had forgotten about them!

A Classy Jewelers:

And a 100yen belt:

Happy Birthday to me!

So, I have just (9 minutes ago) entered my late twenties. It's a little scary, really! But I'll get over it!
So I have (already) celebrated in style - I had some... er... japanese associates (we would *never* associate with students outside of the university!) over to cook me okonomiyaki. Which is basically a kind of eggy pancakey omelet with cabbage and pork or any of a variety of other ingredients in it. I've been hearing about it for a while now, so it was good to see what it actually was. The party was at my place, but we went shopping together first, so I didn't have to prepare anything (except the mad flat-tidying I did yesterday), and they cooked it all, and cleaned up after, so it was wonderful! The easiest sort of party to have. Of course, having 7 people over for dinner when you only have 2 chairs, 2 plates, one bowl, one glass etc. was interesting, but they all put up with it very well. My yoga mat makes a good place to sit, and Marcus and Gloria (who live in the same building) brought their own bowls and whatnot, so we managed!
I hadn't expected an actual birthday party, as we had been talking about an Okonomiyaki party for weeks, and it was just coincidence it was today. But the others got me a surprise birthday cake! It was lovely, although incredibly creamy and rich! I still have a piece left for tomorrow, when I've recovered from this party!

Trains, bars and arabian rock.

First of all, this from Enoshima last week (actually at Fujisawa station):

And a very popular platform it was too.


Then I noticed this at one of the stations on the odakyu line as I was coming home this evening.

Do you think they mean "REquest"? or seek? Is it an ad for a modelling agency? Or a salon that does scary things to you to try to expose your beauty within?

Then there was this. But I'm not so sure about it. It's either a hilarious instance of the oh so common l/r mixup, or someone actually thought they were being funny, in which case, er, it isn't.
This place isn't actually Engrish, but I think it fits here anyway. It really needs the audio, but I decided to save everyone and not record it. It's easy enough to imagine though. It was playing "Arabian" music. By which I mean Arabian Nights from the Disney Aladdin movie. Then it moved on to A Whole New World from the same film. I didn't hang around to see if it had the whole soundtrack going!

And this just sounds messy:

Engrish fix

So it has been pointed out to me that I haven't posted any engrish up here for a while. I have excuses. For a start, I was all fired up to put all this up on Saturday, but blogger was having problems and wouldn't do it for me. The next excuse is that these pics have all been sitting on my camera. One of the drawbacks to a 1gb card, is that there isn't quite the same level of motivation to get the pics off the camera as there was when I only had a 256mb card! And finally, I haven't posted any written engrishes because I've discovered I have an absolutely terrible memory for the exact wordings, and it often really matters.
Enough excuses: here they are:
I like the way my grapefruit juice orders me around. But nicely.

Huh?

Team and band names here get quite, er, creative.
Ok, so this one isn't engrish at all. I just wanted a record of the first box of Pocky I ate here. It was good!

Non-japanese ridiculousness!

Look what I found! A must for all the Monty Python fans and Holy Grail seekers! The Black Beast of Aaaaaargh or the rabbit with Nasty Big Sharp Pointy Teeth! If I could stand soft toys, I'd want them! Of course, I could always by the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch to destroy them when they began to irritate me!

In other news, I have a great backlog of japanese ridiculousnesses that also need uploading here. I've had to start ignoring some, to be honest, as I see about 5 or 6 noteworthy engrishes a day. It's all getting too much for me!

In other other news, I went to see Little Miss Sunshine at the Tokyo International Film Festival on saturday. IT was fantastic! Thanks to Sean for the blogged recommendation! The blurb I found in the program here nearly put me off entirely (I wasn't interested in a dysfunctional family driving to a kids beauty pageant) but it's actually a brilliant film. My friend Gloria and I were the only ones (in the enormous theatre comparable to the Lyric Opera in Brisbane) laughing for the first half. I can only assume the japanese subtitles didn't catch the subtle humour! They all caught up in the second half though, and the film won the audience award for the festival!

The rest of Saturday was spent at a university festival, eating slightly dodgy traditional japanese food, and then seeing an alternative rock band (performing for the first time) in a tiny basement bar in Shinjuku. It was a fantastic day, all up!

Now I just have to survive three more days at work, and then I get a three day weekend! Yay for the japanese and their ridiculous number of public holidays!

Flench and Flied Lice

I was back at the machida giant 100yen shop on saturday, and had another look at the frenc mug I mentioned a couple of posts ago. It actually says:
Le temps quand le lait est entierement mis dans le cafe et il boit est le plus heureux.
(The time when the milk is entirely put in the coffee and it drinks is the most happy)

I came home and mademyself fried rice tonight. It took under 5 minutes, and was rather nice. Here's the recipe, just because.

frozen vegies
ready-cooked rice
soy sauce
sesame oil
sesame sauce
an egg
mushrooms & ham (optional)

Method:
Throw all ingredients into a frypan (not necessarily in that order) and fry.

That's it.

It was yummy.

wstfgl

so I've discovered something very interesting. Imported fancy liqueurs are very cheap in japan. I've found an imported foods supermarket in Machida (2 trains stations away). Itwasvery exciting. Apart from Chai tea (to which I am fast becoming addicted) it had a whole aisle of alcohol, including kahlua, southern comfort, absolut vodka, bombay sapphire gin and cointreau - pretty much anything you could ever want - and most of it was at least half the price of the same thing in australia. My first thought looking at it was "I don't want to spend 2000 yen on anything today". Then I realised that the bottle of Benedictine that I was looking at for 2000 yen ($22.20 according to XE.com, costs about $50 in australia. I bought a bottle of Cointreau for about $18. I was in Machida with Gloria - we met after my japanese lesson at 4, went to Hachioji, which we thought was an even bigger town (but turned out to be very dispointing), so we went to Machida (tried and true) and spent hours in the huge hundred yen shop (again) then, starving, returned to Fuchinobe and found the 100yen sushi train Gloria had seen, which was wonderful, then went to an Even Bigger 99yen store (100yen stores are an addiction. We are addicted. It's a terrible affliction) and then came home, and drank large quantities of Cointreau interspersed with Chai ginger tea while talking about anything and everything and then suddenly it was 4am and we're just slightly very pissed and it's probably bed time. We did have plans to go to tokyo tomorrow, after an early visit to the international festival at the place where I have japanese lessons, but not now. The plan is festival, then Hashimoto, then probably machida again, and we'll go to tokyo next weekend. Really we will.
Head spinning. Bed time. mmm cointreau...

And another couple

Yes, that really does say "Happy Life Creator". It was on a full length raincoat. Naturally.

And on someone's tshirt at uni today:

Twinkling her jelly lip and your sparkling eyes.

I'm told that "jelly lip" might mean lip gloss, (rip gross) but it still doesn't seem to make any sense to me. It was a funky shirt though!

And on a related note, Sean pointed out this delightful little article on Chinglish in Beijing. The best is definitely "To Take Notice of Safe; The Slippery are Very Crafty".

This blog is in danger of becoming nothing but a repository of engrish and flench. Ah well, there are worse fates, I suppose!

To prevent it, I will say something else about my current life. I'm doing housework. Isn't that ridiculous. I think it has something to do with moving into a brand new flat that hadn't been lived in before. Everything was so neat and clean that I sort of want to keep it that way. And it will make cleaning up when I move out (in a mere 9 weeks or something) that much easier, and thus I will keep my cleaning deposit. And of course I don't own much, so it isn't hard to keep it all tidy!
Even weirder is that I'm doing yoga regularly...
When I start voluntarily going to be early and waking up early, I'll know there's something wrong.

Flench

And here's one for the francophones. It was on a mug:

Le temps que le cafe est entierement mis dans la tasse avec du lait est le meilleur.

Translation: The time when the coffee is entirely put in the cup with the milk is the best.

I think that's what it said. I'll have to check when I go back to that shop.

Engrish

Here are the first of the wonderful Engrishes that I've collected so far. I realised within a few days of arriving here that living in Japan will certainly be amusing in some ways, because of the engrish that abound, and these examples are just the first I've remembered to remember, if you know what I mean.
The first was a t-shirt I saw a girl wearing today. Unfortunately I'm not really willing to stop people and ask to take a photo of their outfit so I can laugh at it later, so you'll just have to imagine it. It went like this:
Y O U
W E A R
comfortable
m a y p o l e

I just wonder where you're supposed to wear this maypole. I can't really think of anywhere that would be comfortable...

The other I did manage to get a photo of. And I will continue to post engrish that I see here. I might even submit some to engrish.com.

boredom...

You really know you're bored when you get pissed off because other people haven't updated their blogs and thus provided you with something to read. It's even worse when you get pissed off at others not updating their when you haven't updated your own...
So life in Japan isn't turning out to be non-stop fun and action. I'm slightly bored at work (see my serious blog for why) and then when I get home, I still have not much to do. I know. I need to go out and meet people. It's not so easy - we're not exactly in central Tokyo. I'm getting to know some of my students, who aren't much younger than me (6th year uni students in a country where they finish highschool at 18...) but they're all pretty busy, and likely to get busier, so I don't know how much of a social life I will have with them. (not that I'd ever associate with students outside the school, of course, that would be against westgate policy!)
Last weekend I went to Kawagoe, and discovered that their festivals (apparently one of the 4 biggest in japan) is on this weekend. So I was thinking of going back. I don't know if I will or not - I'd rather like to go with someone, cos I think I'd just wander around feeling very "outside" on my own.
Other than that my plans include a shopping trip to Machida (two stations away) and the 5 storey hundred yen store, and a japanese lesson. That's it. So Far.
Just remembered I hadn't looked at engrish.com for a while. That'll keep me occuupied...

Change of Address!

Look a little different? Well, not much different, but this is definitely the best template design!
I have finally moved my Serious Blog to www.katsseriousblog.blogspot.com which leaves this website free for an actualy non-travel blog. Although I love my travel blog and its functions for travelling (like the maps!) its lack of html and other things just irritates me too often, so I've finally created this blog for all those times when I'm not actively travelling, and just living somewhere.
Yes I realise I am developing a ridiculous number of blogs, but they are all for different purposes!

Civilisation - Bilbao, Spain
visited Aug 31, 2006
So now we´re sitting in a Subway sandwich shop, which just happens to also be an Easyinternetcafe (yes that is all one word, apparently) across the road from the guggenheim museum. We´ve been here since about 1pm, and have managed little other than walking over half the town (despite our day ticket for the metro), eating lunch at burger king (we must have been really hungry!), finding a tourist info place that didn´t help entirely, but a little, and about 4 hours of internet. Necessary, as I´m supposed to be doing a short online training course for my japan job! Better go find a bed for the night...

And stuck again - Logrono, Spain
visited Aug 30, 2006
Having given up on hitching and decided to get the bus to Logrono, we arrived at the bus station at about 8pm. It was still light, not at all late, but it seems that noone in spain travels after about 7, as we had missed the last busses and trains to Bilbao for the night. Grrr. So we ascertained the bus times for bilbao the next morning, lockered most of our stuff at the bus station, and set off with only a dodgy map from the bus station information person to tell us where there might be some cheap hostals or pensions. The first one we found didn´t answer their bell, the second wanted 60euro, and the third only 30. We took it, dumped our (little) bags, and went to find something to eat. The first thing we saw that looked recognisably like food we both knew and knew how to order and eat, was a doner place, complete with a sign out the front in German, strangely enough. After a rather excellent doner each, we felt a lot more human. We must learn to eat a little more regularly... The room was fine, the shower was wonderful 8any shower would be wonderful after three days on the road) and the loud neighbours and paper thin walls didn´t bother us too much. The dog barking insistantly in the minute courtyard (or light well, depending on your perspective) did though. At least that didn´t start til nearly 9am anyway, and we had a bus to catch at 11! A stroll through town on our way to the bus station found us breakfast, and, unexpectedly, a market that sold pomegranates! Haven´t eaten it yet, but we´re looking forward to it, after having become addicted to them in Turkey last year!

Stuck - La Poveda de Soria, Spain
visited Aug 30, 2006
Hitching was really hard today, and we ended up in a tiny village called "Almarza", a few kilometres south of La poveda de Soria. When we were told it was three hours to the bus to Logrono, we though "no, wel´ll stand on the road and get a lift before then, for sure!". But no. With only an hour left to the bus, we decided to go wait in the shade of the only pub (we had to walk past most of the town´s 10 houses to get there). We were lucky enough to get the front seat on the bus, which meant we could almost pretend we were in a truck, but one where we both got a comfortable seat, and I didn´t have to talk to the driver!

Night in a forest - El Burgo de Osma, Spain
visited Aug 29, 2006
ok, so it was a plantation forest, and we had some light all night from the town streetlights, but we were definitely outside the city limits. We could see the back of the "you are leaving El Burgo de Osma" sign from the tent, more or less (well the side of it, anyway). It was a nice little town, with a pretty main square and street that reminded me a lot of Italian small towns. And we had paella and pizza that we saw being taken out of the freezer in the restaurant we stopped in, but it was very good nonetheless. it probably helped that we hadn´t really eaten all day!

Whizz - Fraga, Spain
visited Aug 29, 2006
Didn´t see fraga at all. whizzed past at 150 km an hour in David and Hose´s car. that was a fun ride. Just don´t tell my mother I willingly got in a car with a couple of young guys who slowed down to 80km or so occasionally to take coke, but otherwise drove up to 170km/hr (excellent driving skills though - I never felt scared, strangely enough) (oh. hi mum.). The most fun we´ve had on a ride, though, and they drove us about 100km out of their way, just for the fun of it, I think! They left us a petrol station somewhere between Fraga and Zaragoza, and, before leaving, arranged with a truck driver to take us as far as zaragoza!

well, almost balaguer - Balaguer, Spain
visited Aug 28, 2006
we didn´t quite get to balaguer, but within a few kilometres. That´s where the strange and slightly scary moroccan man who picked us up in Tremp was going. He wanted to give us money to spend the night at his place. For food, showers, and sleeping, he said. hmm. we said a very firm no, strangely enough.

Almost out of the mountains - Sort, Spain
visited Aug 28, 2006
We didn´t want to be way up in the pyrenees for the night (it was chilly up there during the day, camping would have been quite cold, I think)so we managed to get to Sort, which is still in the foothills, but a much more pleasant temperature for mid summer! More to follow, as usual...

Ma Famille Francaise - Venerque, France
visited Aug 28, 2006
Im staying with my french family again in Venerque le vernet. but i still refuse to write about it using this ridiculous keyboard!

We made it to andorra! - Andorra La Vella, Andorra
visited Aug 27, 2006
I´ve wanted to go to andorra for a long time. And now I have! That´s yet another country for the country count! Photos and details to follow.

how did we end up here? - Narbonne, France
visited Aug 26, 2006
Youll have to wait to find out. I refuse to type my adventures on a french keyboard!

Back in Barcelona. - Barcelona, Spain
visited Aug 23, 2006
I like this city. Last time I was here I stayed at the squat the whole time (it was queeruption) and so I didn´t get the barcelona, funky laid back feeling. Were staying in hostel Kabul on placa reial.´This is the place Nathaniel, Kieran, Jen and I wanted to stay for new years a few years ago, but they were full. We´ve unded up here now because we arrived in barcelona at midnight last night, at sants station, which was closing in 10 mins, and so we didn´t ahve time to ring any of the numbers I had copied from the time-out barcelona in a glaswegian bookstore, but I looked at the metro map and saw liceu, recognised it as next to placa reial, and figured that here or the horrible place next door (where we ended up staying that new years!)might do us for at least one night. Turned up here, at about quarter to 1 in the morning, and low and behold, they had a bed for us. Two of them in fact. Though they made me sing before they´d tell me they had them. I sang the first thing that came into my head: "Show me the way to go home, I´m tired and I want to go to bed!". He said that that was very suitable and he could help. And now we´re meeting Diana (my teaching partner for 4 of the last 6 weeks) very shortly, and I did want to have a very short siesta before then! Might go and try that now.

grrr - Glasgow, United Kingdom
visited Aug 22, 2006
The plan was to get up early, get the bus to glasgow, out the bags in a locker, spend the day exploring and then get the train to the airport for our flight to barcelona. The reality was: getting to glasgow at least an hour and ahlaf later than planned, and the flight being an hour earlier than we thought, not to mention the current 2 hour check in time required for all flights. So we had an hour and a half in glasgow, which made it not worth putting the bags in a locker (at 6pounds each) so we spent most of the time in Borders bookstore. At least I got to write down a whole heap of phone numbers from a spanish lonely planet! Having bought the middle east guide book, I don´t have one for spain and portugal and morrocco... grr.

Yay! Edinburgh! - Edinburgh, United Kingdom
visited Aug 20, 2006
Abby is a wonderful person! We stayed with her for two nights. I like edinburgh. it´s the first place in the UK that I´ve seen where I think I could live. Got to meet up with Stephanie again as well, which was great! More later.

A tent in a "field" - Washington, United Kingdom
visited Aug 19, 2006
This post is yet to be written: suffice it to say that we ended up trying to hide under the only tree in a small patch of green around the corner from some guy´s house in the middle of a village on the edge of newcastle.

Finally leaving Cold Ash - Cold Ash, United Kingdom
visited Aug 18, 2006
We´re finished. finally. And tomorrow we set off for Edinburgh, travelling, once again, by thumb, which should be fun, in the UK. So this is the first entry of a New Itinerary. As the planned middle east trip is obviously not going ahead, we´re heading down through spain and portugal to morocco instead, flying from Glasgow to barcelona (we weren´t going to fly, but we found flights for a total of 27pounds each,which is pretty good). I realise I haven´t been updating this much, but I have put on all the cities I´ve been to on excursion I think (though only once each), and I´ve written a few posts on www.nontravelblog.blogspot.com and my whole class have been updating www.katsstudents.blogspot.com regularly, if you are lacking something to read... I will try to keep this updated while we´re travelling, but internet time is often rushed, and I don´t have time to do it properly. And this time, I´m NOT travelling with my laptop! So I can´t write posts offline. I thought it was unecessary, and I should learn to live without it for 4 weeks. I´m sure I´ll get withdrawals, but I´d rather that than lose it or ruin it by taking it hitching with me! I´ll write more when I can.

Another excursion - Oxford, United Kingdom
visited Jul 25, 2006
The excursion to oxford was similar to last year but not bad I think. We started by going punting, which was fun, even though we had 4 punts tied together, and my class just happened to have the kind of children who are attracted to the bottom of rivers... Still, no one actually fell in, and I got to do some punting, which wasn´t easy (probably cos of the 4 punts tied together), but fun nonetheless. At least I didn´t fall in! Then we walked past christchrch (look, that´s where harry potter was filmed!) and then up to the pitt rivers museum, which is a wonderland of quirky objects from all over the world, with the real live shrunken heads the prime exhibit. It is actually one room of the natural history museum, but one room that is crammed from floor to ceiling(and the ceiling is about 3 stories high) with display cases so close together you can barely walk between them, and each case is stuffed with bizarre things, and under the display cases are drawers, also stuffed with bizarre things. It´s fun really!

Boiling hot - Cold Ash, United Kingdom
visited Jul 22, 2006
England isn't supposed to boil. not even in mid-summer. It's been over 30 degrees every day this week, and the kids have been impossible in the hot classrooms - particularly in the afternoons. My room is on the corner on the top floor, which means that 2 walls are actually roof (I have to duck to get to the edge of my room). I'm also on the western side, which doesn't help. And my 2 windows only open about 3 centimetres each, presumably to prevent me throwing myself out of them when things get too much. It all adds up to quite an effective sauna. Not pleasant. Just as well I don't have any time to spend in there! Except now, on the weekend. And today, thankfully, it has been cool and rainy. Such a relief! Off now to either watch a quiet dvd, or to find someone who wants to wander down to the pub for a similarly quiet lemonade...

Another excursion - Bath, United Kingdom
visited Jul 16, 2006
I volunteered to go to bath with the Kids and Teens this week. Kate was going anyway, as the weekend excursions are run by the AOs, and I decided it would be nice to have a free trip to bath. We had a sightseeing bus ride around, but my headphones were so bad I didn't really here much of the pre-recorded commentary, which was sad, and then there was an hour of messing about before we went to the Roman Baths, which would have been lovely if they weren't so incredibly crowded. After that we finally got our promised shopping time, but we had about an hour in total, half of which Kate and I spent finding ourselves lunch, as they had run out of packed lunches. Luckily the school reimburses us for them! It was very hot and sunny, and I'm a bit sunburnt, despite the many layers of sunscreen. I can burn on this side of the world, it seems. It just takes a little longer!

Survived Week 1 - Cold Ash, United Kingdom
visited Jul 14, 2006
Very, Very grateful for fridays here. I have the whole weekend off, unless I volunteer for an excursion, which I do, as it's free travel and a free trip to the shops, which are hard to come by around here.

Week 1 Excursion - London, United Kingdom
visited Jul 12, 2006
Our first excursion for the summer was to London, where my teaching partner David and I first shepherded our 18 kids from Westminster Abbey to the London Eye, then waited the required hour to go up in that overgrown ferris wheel, before having a rather pleasant river cruise to the Tower Bridge and back (at least as pleasant as anything can be when accompanied by 112 kids aged 7-13). I still don't like london, but it is a nicer place when someone else pays for it all.

Downe House - Cold Ash, United Kingdom
visited Jul 7, 2006
Finally made it to the Lines summer school at Downe House. More about the lovely, long, frustrating journey later (thanks AGAIN british rail...) The program here is Intensive But Fun (as we are told everytime we walk past one of the million Lines Languages banners that are up all over the school), so I'm working 12-16 hour days mostly, but I get weekends sort of free, apart from sunday evening placement testing, and having to sit with kids if I turn up to meals, which I will, cos sitting with kids for the 10 mins they take to eat, then sitting with teachers for an hour over post-prandial coffee is preferable to starving! and, of course, I seem to have spent all of today either sorting out the displays in my classroom, or fiddling with my students' blog (www.katsstudents.blogspot.com - have a look!) or entering my test scores for the week, or something. And tomorrow I'm accompanying kids to Bath, but voluntarily, so I don't have to spend the whole day with them, and it's basically a free trip to a shop, with a tour of Bath and the Roman Baths thrown in. I'll write here when I can, but as I'm doing little but teaching, I will probably write more posts in the next month to my Serious Blog instead (www.nontravelblog.blogspot.com). Oh, and as you may have already surmised, the trip to israel syria and lebanon is currently on hold until we see whathappens to the region. More about our Plan B later.

Half an hour in Sweden - Malmo, Sweden
visited Jul 6, 2006
We were up at 7, and on the bus by 25 past. Then another bus (a Grahundbus)to the airport in Malmo for our cheap Ryanair flight to London. I realise that half an hour in a country barely counts, but I think it should, so I am. After all, I spent some swedish crowns (albeit some that Kate had from the last time she had been there) and did notice some things. For example: Denmark, both from the air, and from the sea (as we crossed the marvelous bridge/tunnel that goes from Denmark to Sweden) is as flat as a carpet. Quite amazingly flat. And barely above the water level. I'm surprised the whole place doesn't get swamped at high tide. Sweden, on the other hand, was immediately noticeably different, as it had some texture and small rolling hills. Nothing high, of course, but just enough to make it different. So that's 46 countries, I think. :)

Festival - Copenhagen, Denmark
visited Jul 5, 2006
After the last post, we spent most of Sunday wandering around the most famous bits of the city, including the Little Mermaid who sits on a rock near the port. We arrived back at the festival house to be told that there wouldn't be anyone to let us in at the squat where we were staying until about midnight. To our jetlagged selves, this sounded painful, but a nice woman showed us a mattress in the attic of the house here, and, despite the heat, we crashed for a few hours. When we finally got to the squat, we were shown a large concert room that was the designated sleeping area for festival people. It smelt of old beer and cigarettes, but the atmosphere was a little better up on the stage, so we set up there and crashed. As it turned out, we only had one night there, as the second day, we were told about two women who had offered their house for showers and maybe to sleep, but only to "nice" women (which we apparently are). As I was desperate for a shower (I hadn't had one since Korea, and this was our second day in compenhagen!), we turned up there quite late on monday evening, and ended up staying the night. It's a lovely little flat on the top floor, occupied by a Danish lesbian couple and their flatmate from Sweden. It's nice to be able to stay with and talk to some locals - the people at the squat didn't seem in the slightest interested in talking to us, and we sort of felt like intruders. It's much nicer in the flat, and we are very very grateful to the three women for hosting us! Our days have pretty much consisited of spending the morning wandering around Copenhagen, and the afternoon and evening at the festival. Kate has had fun showing me all her old haunts from her semester here in 2004, as well as the tourist sites of the city. Unfortunately it's been really hot, so our tolerance for wandering around is a little limited, but my overall impression is that Copenhagen is a very pleasant little city. As part of the festival we have been to workshops on Queer family, Queer Hair and a very exciting talk and film from Del LaGrace Volcano, which was unexpected. He is in the process of making another book of photos called "Femmes of Power" which sparked Kate's interest. After the workshop we spent some time talking to Del, along with some other people interested in being in the book. It looks like an exciting project! Also as part of the festival, we visited Christiania. This is a whole area of Copenhagen that was squatted about 30 years ago, that has declared itself an independent state. We visited the queer house there, which is actually just a theatre and organising space, but it's very nice to know it's there. We were also given a tour of christiana by one of the women from the house, which was nice, as we would never have seen all the intersting nooks and crannies of the area without it! On to England and Cold Ash tomorrow. I hope it is cooler there!

Made it! - Copenhagen, Denmark
visited Jul 2, 2006
I've been travelling for over 60 hours. I think itøs some sort of record for getting to europe. Of course, about 15 hours of it was spent in a 5 star luxury hotel, which seems to prevent too much sympathy coming my way. I think the night in Stansted airport more than makes up for that, even though I was lucky enough to score one of the very few sets of seats that didn't have arms to get in the way of lying down. I met kate in the baggage collection section of the airport here - our flights were so well timed! - and we negotiated our way by train to central, then, using my dodgy knowledge of a map I glanced at 4 days ago, plus a new map, we miraculously fonud our way to the Festival House, where we have been welcomed warmly, and offered a place to put our bags for the day, and some internet! Yay! Unfortunately, I managed to leave home without my European adaptor, so my computer is currently out of action, and I canøt get the several thousand words of blog entries I wrote while waiting in airports and on planes. They will be uploaded as soon as we find the adaptor Kate brought. We don't get to go to our accomodation until about 8pm tonight, by which time I think we will both be asleep on our feet, but we'll dig out the adaptor then. Korean airlines overall rates low on movies and entertainment (no individual tvs!), lowish on food, but absolutely top notch for the stopover. If I hadn't had that proper night's sleep, I would probably be a whole lot deader right now than I currently am. Have to go, Kate is dying to show me around Copenhagen! She's already at the markets that I can see out the window here, and I promised to catch up, after my internet fix. Oh, and this is the 45th country that I have visited in my life. Hey Dad: Beat you!

Incheon Stll - Seoul, South Korea
visited Jul 1, 2006
So no free internet at Incheon Airport. I could have paid 3000 won ($4ish) for an hour, but I only have about half an hour, and I can't be bothered changing any money for it. On first impressions, Korea seems to be somewhere in between China and Japan. And I'm not just talking geographically. I went for a walk last night, and decided that korea smells similar to China, and the shops were very much like some I'd seen in the richer areas there (remembering that these are shops within a 2 minute walk of the Hyatt Regency, that seems reasonable!). Bowing is important here, as in Japan. The hotel person who led us to our shuttle bus last night bowed deeply to it as it pulled away from the curb. I still prefer both chinese and japanese food, but I've worked out why now. I don't like Kim Chi. I picked up a whole book on this korean staple (it's pretty much pickled vegetables, I think) in an airport bookshop half an hour ago, and read "once you have acquired a taste for it, your dinner table will never be complete without it". I think I'll just skip the acquiring process and live happily without it! I meant to take a photo of me all pink cheeked after my bath and wrapped in the fluffy white terry toweling bathrobe, but I forgot, so you'll just have to imagine it. Here are some pics of my hotel and the view from it instead. As you can see, something else that reminds me of china is the thick soupy smog, although it is also overcast (I think) today, which might not be helping. Boarding now.

Leaving again... - Brisbane, Australia
visited Jun 30, 2006
Brisbane I know I keep leaving, but sometimes brisbane isn't such a bad place. During this last 4 months, I have discovered that I need to discover more about the nooks and crannies of the city (because I hadn't realised there were any) and have realised that I like water. I like the fact that Brisbane has a huge great river through it, and that in order to get just about anywhere, you need to cross it, or drive along it. The riverside expressway at sunset is a lovely sight (I promise that's not why I had the accident though), and from the air, the whole place is rather pretty. Flying to Hamilton last week, we did a loop right over the city, and, as there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it was a wonderfully clear day, the river (and the skyscrapers) were all sparkling in the sun. It was fantastic! Pity I don't own a camera at the moment!

Incheon (The airport city next to Seoul) - Seoul, South Korea
visited Jun 30, 2006
I'm sitting in the Hyatt Regency Incheon, Not Using their internet. I'm too cheap to pay 20000won (whatever that means) for a day's access. Just as I was too cheap to pay US$10 an hour to use the inflight wireless internet (I had heard they had it now, but didn't really believe it!). So this will just have to wait until I next get a connection - hopefully in Stansted or Heathrow, where I think there might be free wireless. Finally got away from Brisbane - I should remember not to arrange such early flights when I don't have any family in town! The wonderful james came to my rescue, giving me half a lift to the airport. I still had to be on a train to Bowen Hills at 6am, but if I had caught the train the whole way, it would have been 5am. At the checkin, they told me their weren't any exit row seats left, and found my an aisle bulkhead instead - I wasn't looking forward to it. I was, however, directed to the reservations desk to make a reservation for an aisle seat for the next flight, and discovered a wonderful thing. Korean air reserves the exit row seats for people who go and specifically ask for them at a separate counter, and they easily changed my first flight to a window exit row. This system means that any spare seats on the plane end up in the exit rows, so there's extra space in all directions! I was most pleased, and the flight was rather pleasant. No individual tvs on this flight, and the drawback of the exit row seat was a small screen too far away to read subtitles, so I skipped the korean movie and read instead. I should have brought another book as carry on, as I've finished the first one. I hope I can find someone to swap with, as I dare say the next flight will have the same problems! I did get to watch the second movie - Failure to Launch. Yay. One moment of excitement - I happened to glance out the window just as we were flying over the chesterfields. I wouldn't have expected to see them, being just two small reefs and islands in the middle of the coral sea, inhabited only by birds, pretty much, but obviously we were in just the right spot. I last saw them in 1991 when we stopped there on praxis. I'm pretty sure it was the chesterfields, anyway! On arrival, I discovered that they don't make it too easy to work out where you are supposed to go for the Hyatt (I get free accomodation here because the flights don't meet up, which is nice), but managed anyway. I've explored the hotel, been for a walk down the street to a few shops that are nearby, had the set menu dinner (my opinion of korean food is improving slightly) and soaked in a deep hot bath. I'm now wrapped in the white terry bathrobe loungng in the armchair with my feet up, and I'm about to crawl into the king size bed and crash. get 10 hours sleep, have the buffet breakfast (which I've heard is very nice) and then take the free bus 2 minutes down the road to the airport at the nice civilised hour of 11.15 or so. Hopefully I'll feel relaxed and slept enough to survive the 24 hours after that - still dreading this night on the floor of stansted...